Setting up HTTPS on this blog with Let’s Encrypt

In this short video I will setup HTTPS support for this blog, I was amazed how easy it was and just had to record a video (it literally took 5 minutes!) and I’m really pleased I gave Let’s Encrypt a go.

Before you checkout the video be sure to take a look at the Let’s Encrypt website for instruction on how you can add HTTPS support to your own blog or site.

Instructions

Step 1

Clone the Let’s Encrypt repo on your server:

$ git clone https://github.com/letsencrypt/letsencrypt

and CD into the directory created:

$ cd letsencrypt

Step 2

From the lets encrypt directory run the latsencrpyt-auto command

$ ./letsencrypt-auto

This will take a while and will install all the dependencies required, once complete it will present you with a wizard that will guide you through the setup.

Once you have completed the wizard, you will have HTTPS support activated on your site! WOW!

Step 3

Because Let’s Encrypt certificates expire after 3 months you will want to automate the renew, this is as simple as running one command:$ letsencrypt-auto renew

In the video I wrapped this in a script that I set as a cron job to run every day.

And that’s it, setting up SSL and HTTPS support is now FREE and more importantly its easy and automated so you wont every have a Monday morning where your cert has expired and your users/readers are emailing you to see whats going on with your site 🙂

I really hope you enjoyed this How To and video, if so please leave a command or like the video as its your support that keeps me going 😉